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of the Great King | 


and Other ‘Places in 
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The (ity 
of the Great King 








The Street of David 








and other places in 


the Holy Land 


Pictured by 


Dean Cornwell 
and 
Described by 


(illiam lajon Phelps 





Cosmopolitan Book Corporation 
New York MCMXXVI 





COPYRIGHT, 1925, 1926, BY INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE Company, Inc. 
(Good HOUSEKEEPING) ey 


CopyricHT, 1926, By CosMoPoLITAN Book CoRPoRATION 





All rights reserved, poading that of translation 
into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian. 


CON TEN TS 


The City of the Great King 


There Were Shepherds in the Fields . 


The Carpenter of Nazareth. 
The Way of the Cross . 

A Copper Shop in Jerusalem . 
The Golden Gate 


The Dead Sea and the Living Water . 


The Sea of Galilee . 

The Pot-Seller of Bethlehem 

A House in Nazareth . 

The Road to Damascus . 

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre 


109 








THE CITY OF THE GREAT KING 





oem CENITLY the New York papers 
€ gent had news from Jerusalem on 
, the front page; so it ever was, 
is, and will be. The Holy City 
has always had what the slang of 
today calls “news value,’ and no wonder, for 
the greatest news came from it, the word Gospel 
meaning simply Good News. Long before the 
Jews invaded Palestine, Jerusalem was impor- 
tant; it reached a climax of glory in the reigns 
of David and the grandiose Solomon. Then the 
kings of the earth brought their glory and honor 
into it, as in the later dream of the apostle. 
Jerusalem has been conquered, retaken, con- 
quered again, razed, rebuilt, occupied by vari- 
ous nations and devotees of various religions. 
It has survived appalling calamities and appar- 
ently fatal disasters; like the fabled Phoenix, it 
rises from its own ashes, indestructible and 


unique. It has been the stage of innumerable 
3 


4 The City of the Great King 





battles; but though victor and vanquished soon 
joined the universal democracy of dust, the city 
lives. 

During the long centuries before Christ, the 
eyes of the world were frequently turned toward 
Jerusalem; in the Middle Ages, men, women, 
and alas! the children of Europe left their 
bodies on the journey thither; and after the city 
had seen in the course of its strange, eventful 
history soldiers in Jebusite, Jewish, Egyptian, 
Assyrian, Greek, Roman, and Arabian armor, 
Englishmen, clad in the khaki of the twentieth 
century, entered its gates. Forever associated 
with the Prince of Peace, it has been the prize 
and goal of many wars. 

As its history is one long drama, so drarnatic 
literature has found it a rich and fruitful theme. 
I open Shakespeare’s “King Henry IV,” and 
find these lines: 


Therefore, friends, 
As far as to the sepulchre of Christ,— 
Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross 
We are impressed and engag’d to fight,— 
Forthwith a power of English shall we levy, 
Whose arms were moulded in their mother’s womb 
To chase these pagans in those holy fields 


The City of the Great King 5 








Over whose acres walk’d those blessed feet 
Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail’d 
For our advantage on the bitter cross. 


What was planned in the fifteenth century hap- 
pened in the twentieth. James Elroy Flecker, 
English poet, wrote in 1912: 
Then the black cannons of the Lord 
Shall wake crusading ghosts, 
And the Milky Way shall swing like a sword 
When Jerusalem vomits its horde 


On the Christmas Day preferred of the Lord, 
The Christmas Day of the Hosts! 


Christmas, 1914, as he lay on his deathbed, 
Flecker added a footnote, “This poem contains 

. words that ring like a prophecy of events 
that may occur very soon.” I read his note for 
the first time at Christmastide, 1917, as the Eng- 
lish army entered Jerusalem. 

In 1925, John Masefield, the English poet, 
wrote his tragedy, “The Trial of Jesus,” and in 
the same year the American poet Don Marquis 
printed his passion play, “The Dark Hours.” 
Jerusalem is as inexhaustible in literature and in 
drama as it is in reality. 

The size of a country has no relation to its 


6 The City of the Great King 





influence. Palestine is about 160 miles north 
and south and about 80 east and west. Jerusalem 
is about the size of Binghamton, New York, 
but there is no city whose name is more univer- 
sally known. And although it has a conglomera- 
tion of races and religions, it is quite the opposite 
of a melting-pot. It is a mingling, not a mix- 
ture; in its narrow streets men touch elbows, 
men whose worlds of thought are as remote as 
the east is from the west. 

The admirable artist, Dean Cornwell, has 
given us a picture so faithful and so dynamic 
that we not only can see the activity depicted, 
but can almost hear the noises and smell the 
odors. The East is one prodigious international 
smell, which I am quite willing to inhale from 
painted resemblances and from books of travel. 
Here is one city unpenetrated by the Ford, and 
yet its streets are choked with traffic. This par- 
ticular thoroughfare is the Street of David in 
its normal condition today. It is the principal 
street of the city, and, crossed by Christian 
Street, quarters the city into Jewish, Moham- 
medan, Greek, and Christian sections. 


The City of the Great King 7 








As I look at the colors, turbulence, and varie- 
gated crowd, I feel that I have seen Jerusalem 
without having been there; and this is exactly 
what the artist intended me to see and feel. If 
the experiment is successful on me—and it is— 
it will doubtless work in a similar fashion on 
most readers, for experience has taught me that 
I am an average man. 

The streets of Jerusalem are about nine feet 
wide; they are as free from vehicular traffic as 
Venice. Laden camels take the place of trucks, 
and the sheep and the goats are as yet socially 
undivided. Observe the costumes of men and 
women; they wear racial uniforms. The float- 
ing population is composed of pilgrims from 
Mecca and Algiers, natives of the Sudan, 
now-homeless Russians, and_ ever-homeless 
Armenians. 

The Moslem colors are red and green, and 
holy days and holidays abound. These things 
have not changed, but the American gasoline- 
can has supplanted the oriental water-jar, even 
as in America the filling-station has taken the 
place of the saloon. 


8 The City of the Great King 








To men of various races and religions, the 
name Jerusalem connotes varying thoughts. 
But to Christians it is the City of the Great 
King, and above all, the City of his Son, the 
King of Kings. We love Jerusalem because 
Our Lord loved it. Were ever words addressed 
to any city more tender than these? 


O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the 
prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto 
thee, how often would I have gathered thy chil- 
dren together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens 
under her wings, and ye would not! 


It is not only the city of David, and of his 
Greater Son, it is not only the blood-stained city 
of the past, it gives its name to the Ideal City of 
the future, the capital of the Kingdom of God. 


And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, 
coming down from God out of heaven, prepared 
as a bride adorned for her husband. 


And when the saints see that City in their 
dreams, with its towers and domes and pinnacles 
in the eternal light, they sing, 


Jerusalem the Golden! 


rere Cer, 
Shep ee inthe Hields 








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These powerful children of 


sun have the haughty dignity and 





careless grace of royal blood. 


Dedouin shepherds at Beth - 






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THERE WERE SHEPHERDS 
IN THE FIELDS 





Ya| the artist, with admirable com- 
\R7 a bination of line and color, has 
(@@| given us a vivid portrayal of the 
Exa=@) Bedouin shepherds at Bethle- 
hem as ae appear today. The word “Bed- 
ouins” means dwellers in the open, or, as they 
name themselves, tent-people. Even as the Jews 
are the children of Abraham, so the Bedouins 
claim the same lofty lineage. As Isaac was the 
son of Abraham and Sarah, the wandering Ish- 
mael was the son of Abraham and Hagar. Now, 
according to the Bedouin tradition, these no- 
mads regard Ishmael as the father of their race. 
In a certain sense, Jews, Mohammedans, and 
Christians are all brothers; for David was 
among the descendants of Abraham, and in the 
line of the great king came in due process of 
time the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. 


I'l 


12 The City of the Great King 








Although the shepherds in the picture might 
seem to tourists little better than vagabonds or 
tramps, no pale-faced European aristocrat has 
in his temperament more pride of race. These 
powerful children of the sun have the haughty 
dignity and careless grace of royal blood. They 
are wanderers by both choice and necessity, for 
the fierce heat of summer and the bitter winds 
of winter make scanty and meager pasturage. 
They may seem to lead their flocks of sheep and 
goats, but in reality the animals lead them, for 
the life of one and the livelihood of the other 
depend upon grass. Here the earth is red, 
abounding in broken stones; to a superficial 
glance about the only vegetation appears to con- 
sist of sparse groves of gray-green olive trees. 

The upright figure, who dominates the whole 
picture, wears the long, aristocratic sleeves of 
antiquity, so long that their ends touch the 
ground. No working costume is this, nor is it 
meant to be; others work, he commands. The 
man seated in the foreground, with his back 
turned to us, wears a thing of shreds and patches, 
a sheepskin—his diploma of the open air— 


The City of the Great King 13 





with the fur side inside. How they endure these 
sultry coverings in summer is as mysterious as 
the burden of seven or eight layers of clothes 
worn by Russian cab-drivers in July. 

The musician of the little party is discoursing 
melody on a shepherd’s pipe, two bamboo 
cylinders hitched together. Perhaps the words 
that go with this air resemble in significance 
those of Bayard Taylor’s passionate Bedouin 
love-song: 


From the Desert I come to thee 
On a stallion shod with fire; 

And the winds are left behind 
In the speed of my desire. 

Under thy window I stand, 
And the midnight hears my cry: 

I love thee, I love but thee, 
With a love that shall not die 

Till the sun grows cold, 

And the stars are old, 

And the leaves of the Judgment 

Book unfold! 


The huge tent to the right is of heavy, dark 
wool. In the background old men are sitting 
with the boys, and it is the business of the latter 
to tend the flocks. Women, unlike children, are 
in these particular groups neither seen nor heard. 


14 The City of the Great King 





But you may be sure they are not idle, for they 
are beasts of burden. At this moment they may 
be walking the six dusty miles to Jerusalem, 
carrying on their unveiled heads leather recep- 
tacles filled with cheese. 

The proud and independent Bedouins are 
not aware that they are on holy ground; they 
talk and trade and oversee their flocks in an in- 
difference to sacred history as complete as that 
of the gambling Roman soldiers at the foot of 
the Cross. But we, who live not as they after the 
fashion of remote antiquity, we children of the 
twentieth century, gaze on this harsh and barren 
land with feelings compounded of solemn wor- 
ship and ineffable tenderness. For over this 
sterile waste came Mary to the inn. Over this 
ground she went away carrying in her arms the 
Hope of the World. 

Brought up, as every American is or should 
be, on the most beautiful of all stories, the story 
told by St. Luke, we often imagine that the 
Shepherds of the Night who did homage to the 
Divine Child must have been gentle and kindly 


The City of the Great King 15 
welt ae in al TET le ee 


men. In all probability it was quite otherwise. 
As the Son of Man had in his face, bearing, and 
voice such authority that the rough, virile fisher- 
men left their nets, their work, and their friends 
to follow him, and were born again into the 
Kingdom of God, so the uncouth and savage 
shepherds of the Nativity, who had never feared 
either the face of nature or the face of man, be- 
came, at the celestial light, sore afraid. It was 
not until they stood in the Divine Presence that 
they were transformed. Not until after that 
revolutionary experience did they glorify and 
praise God. They were changed, even as later 
the wild heart of Saul was changed by the vision 
of the Light of the World. 

We must forget—if we ever believed—that 
these men were Sunday School shepherds. I 
advise all lovers of the Gospel story to read one 
of the English medieval mystery plays—say the 
Second Shepherds’ Play—where in crude but 
convincing realism the rough herders are truly 
depicted; and as the Wise Men brought royal 
gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh, so 





16 The City of the Great King 
a ae ee EH Oa ORD ET 


the shepherds brought pretty playthings that 
from time immemorial have won the heart of a 
little child. 

In the background of the picture is the town 
of Bethlehem, containing today about eight thou- 
sand people. There is no gradual transition 
from city to country by the suburban process; 
the buildings of the town are huddled together as 
if in concerted protection against the fierce 
winds; and beyond the last row of houses is the 
bleak desert. Sharp as is this contrast, it is not 
so sharp as the contrast between the significance 
of Bethlehem before and after the birth of Jesus. 
As one individual has often changed the course 
of history, so the Divine Child changed one com- 
monplace village from almost complete obscur- 
ity into the center of the world’s civilization. 
From this barren ground sprang the inexhaust- 
ible well of living water. 

Look again at the picture. As we gaze on 
these shepherds in the garish day, it takes but 
little imagination for the sunshine to turn into 
starlight, and we see “in the same country” the 
nameless but immortal shepherds keeping watch 





The City of the Great King 17 








over their flock by night. Then the bright stars 
paled before the Star of Bethlehem. Then the 
shepherds left their sheep to behold the Lamb of 
God. 





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Ohe Carpenter of 
azareth 


















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ful delineation of an actual car. Nf 
penter’s shop i in Nazareth today 





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THE CARPENTER OF NAZARETH 


mel’ ANY tourist has photographed, 
peal or any other artist painted, a 
| scene similar to this of the car- 
penter of Nazareth, I have not 
@} discovered it. This is not an 
imaginary picture of Jesus and Joseph, but a 
faithful delineation of an actual carpenter’s 
shop in Nazareth today. Mr. Cornwell has re- 
produced a typical shop, a typical father and 
son, the actual furniture and structure of the 
building, the peculiar implements used in the 
craft. 

These are timeless tools and timeless methods. 
Things and customs do not change in the East 
as with us—there is no Yankee ingenuity, no 
passion for efficiency, no desire to be up to date. 
The standard is not in the future, but in the past. 
It is because it was. 

The carpenter is sitting on the ground—in an 


attitude that years of habit have made comfort- 
2! 





22 The City of the Great King 





able for him. With his left foot he holds the 
wood in a secure position, while he drills. Be- 
hind him are poles, with bark on, from which he 
crudely fashions camel saddles, plows, ax- 
handles, hoes, forks—all the things of utility 
used in the simple life of farming in and around 
Nazareth. Drags, used for threshing, are 
among the principal things he makes; one is 
leaning against the wall at the right of the pic- 
ture, and another is on the ground, partly cov- 
ered by his “abaya” carelessly thrown over it. 
Notice the serious attitude of the boy. He is 
not only working, but is interested. He is not 
day-dreaming, nor is he wondering how soon 
this toil will be over, so that he can go out and 
play. It will not be over, and he will not go out 
and play. This boy does not know that he is 
missing anything; the relation between father 
and son in Palestine is not merely a family re- 
lation; it is professional. The boy is eager to 
learn; he wants to imitate his father, and he al- 
ready has something of the pride of partnership 
in the “firm.” This is, of course, locally true not 
merely of carpenters, but of potters, shoemakers, 


The City of the Great King 23 





blacksmiths, coppersmiths, etc. The streets are 
not filled with noisy boys; they are at work. 

The artist, by giving us not an imaginary pic- 
ture of Jesus and Joseph, but a realistic painting 
of a carpenter and his son at work in Nazareth 
today, has through his very representation 
brought the boyhood of Our Lord closer to us 
than any fancy. The tools and the methods of 
work have not changed; and as this father and 
son in 1925 put their bodies and minds into their 
daily toil, so undoubtedly did Joseph and the 
Son of Man. 

When we think of the birth of Jesus and also 
of his death, we think of him associated with his 
mother. The Virgin and the Babe have illu- 
minated twenty centuries with celestial radiance; 
and by the Cross stood the mother, sharing in 
her heart every agony of her Son. But in the 
long interval between babyhood and the Jordan 
baptism, there must have been hours, and days, 
and weeks, and months, and years of the closest 
intimacy between Jesus and Joseph; in Nazareth 
Jesus was known as “the carpenter’s son.” 
When he began his ministry there, where he had 


24 The City of the Great King 
SS 


been brought up, the attention of the crowd was 
drawn to him because for many years they had 
seen him at his daily work with his foster-father; 
and they had the same curiosity to hear him that 
always characterizes the people of a village 
when some native boy who has been away to 
study returns and takes up professional duties 
for the first time. Everybody comes out to hear 
him. 
Listen to the words of St. Luke: 





And he came to Nazareth, where he had been 
brought up; and, as his custom was, he went into 
the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up 
forstoireads.. 4c 

And he began to say unto them, This day is this 
scripture fulfilled in your ears. 

And all bare him witness, and wondered at the 
gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. 
And they said, Is not this Joseph’s son? 


As we look at the picture, it is pleasant to think 
of the years of intimacy between Joseph and the 
divine youth. This would have been emphasized 
by Eastern customs, which persist even unto this 
day. I refer to the separation of the men from 
the women. The male members of the family 


The City of the Great King 25 








work, eat, pray, and take their recreation apart 
from the women. Thus the ordinary pride that 
every boy everywhere takes in imitating his 
father, in “being a man,” is strengthened in 
Palestine by inseparable association. The ear- 
nestness of the young apprentice in this painting 
indicates masculine pride; “we men work to- 
gether.” 

We think of Jesus as the son of Mary, but 
the people of Nazareth thought of him as the son 
of Joseph. An amazing feature of the life of 
Our Lord is its long period of obscurity; from 
childhood to the age of thirty there is recorded 
not one event in his life, not a word from his 
lips. The most important and influential Per- 
sonality in history spent nearly all his life in 
secret preparation for a short career—there is 
a lesson in that too obvious to miss. What did 
Joseph and Jesus talk about, in the days of sum- 
merr What thoughts passed through the boy’s 
mind as he did his mechanical work? Well, as 
we gaze on this picture, our imagination is irre- 
sistibly drawn to the years of cheerful toil, where 


26 The City of the Great King 
REI SE AE Sl a 


the divine workman learned and practiced his 
trade. This is how he looked and this is how 
he toiled. 

Perhaps one day, while he was fashioning a 
yoke for oxen, an idea came to him that in later 
years he was to use in the most beautiful and 
most memorable of his sayings: 





Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I 
am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest 
unto your souls. 

For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. 


I suppose none of the great speeches of Our 
Lord has been more misunderstood and misrep- 
resented than this. The yoke is usually repre- 
sented as the badge of servitude, and Jesus is 
supposed to be insisting that we must become his 
slaves, and suffer his yoke, as though the yoke 
wereacross. But as hasbeen repeatedly pointed 
out, Jesus was a carpenter; he had made yokes; 
he knew that the yoke was not an additional tor- 
ture to the patient ox, it was the yoke that made it 
easy for the ox to draw his burden. The yoke 
saved his neck from being galled; it enabled him 
to bear an enormous burden, because the yoke 


The City of the Great King 27 





was “easy.” In applying this figure, drawn 
from the carpenter shop, Jesus was telling us 
that the burden we all have to bear is simply life, 
the daily weight of care, work, and worry; it is 
not a calamity or disaster, it is just the daily bur- 
den of living. Our Lord seems to say: 

“You must draw this burden; let me show you 
how to draw it most easily, with the least suffer- 
ing. Try my yoke, take my method, practice my 
way of living, and you will find the burden is 
light. You will find rest unto your souls.” 











took his last melancholy pilgrim- . ) 












he Jerusalem street now 

known for many centuries 
as the Via Dolorosa. ... It was — 
along this street that Onn Lord — 





age to ignominy, torture, and 


death. 





THE WAY OF THE CROSS 
PSE HE accompanying picture shows 
25 y) ae) us the Jerusalem street now 
cB | jeex| known for many centuries as the 
Via Dolorosa. The artist paint- 
ed it one bright Sunday at high 
noon, and the cheerful activity of the scene gives 
no suggestion why this thoroughfare bears its 
tragic name. We look along the sloping street ; 
there is a turn at almost a rightangle to the left 
which continues for a hundred yards or so, and 
then right again to the Place of Judgment. 

The scene, although not overcrowded, is full 
of life. In the strong sunshine appear the boy 
and the patient beast of burden, the latter infal- 
libly reminding us of the humble manner in 
which the King of Kings entered Jerusalem. In. 
the background is a man heavily laden, and in 
the cool shadow to the right is the inevitable beg- 
gar. Overhead, on either side of the powerful 


arches, are revealed the peculiarities of local do- 
31 





32 The City of the Great King 








mestic architecture; and not the least brilliant 
color in a scene full of color is, unspeakably far 
aloft, the cloudless blue. 

Although this particular road is called the 
Via Dolorosa, there is not a street in the city 
which has not at some time or other been 
stained with blood. The history of Jerusalem is 
appalling ; so many times has it been captured by 
armed forces of so many and various nations, 
sO many times has it been destroyed and rebuilt, 
so many times have helpless fugitives, trying in 
vain to escape from ruthless pursuers, been put 
to the torture and the sword. 

From the centuries before Joshua crossed the 
Jordan to the moment, only a few years ago, 
when the British army entered its gates, Jerusa- 
lem, always bearing the same name, has been 
attacked and defended with ferocity. Perhaps 
no other city in the world has experienced so 
many tragedies over so long a range of time. 
Strangest of paradoxes—that the city held sa- 
cred by Jews, by Christians, and by Mohamme- 
dans, should have been the theater for such a 
succession of terrible dramas! If the stones 


The City of the Great King 33 
————— 


could indeed cry out, what tales of horror would 
they tell! It is fortunate that echoes are tran- 
sient; that they die with the voice that awakens 
them. 

It was along this street, along this Via Dolo- 
rosa, that Our Lord took his last melancholy pil- 
grimage that was to end in ignominy, torture, 
and death—from which sacrifice was to spring 
eternally the hope of the world. He had been 
scourged—an abominably cruel punishment; he 
had worn the crown of thorns; pale and sick 
with suffering, amid the taunts of the indifferent 
soldiers and the insults of the mob, he walked to 
the final tragedy and the final triumph. 

This picture of the Way takes us back to the 
day of days. Never in history was there such an 
instance of what the old poet called High Hu- 
mility. Many a man has died for other men; 
but the marvel of the Gospel story is the Son of 
God submitting not merely to physical pain and 
death, but to the vilest insult and injury and deg- 
radation in order that he might save those who 
are farther removed from his glory than the low- 
est insect from the glory of man. 





34 The City of the Great King 


Look again at the picture. It is the Via Dolo- 
rosa near the Fifth Station. It was at the Fifth 
Station where Simon of Cyrene took the cross. 
It was a recognized part of the ritual of torture 
that the condemned man must bear his own cross 
on the road to the place of execution; undoubt- 
edly Jesus began the journey in this manner, and 
so we are informed in the Fourth Gospel; but 
Matthew, Mark, and Luke state that a certain 
bystander, Simon the Cyrenian, who little knew 
of the secure and deathless fame he was to 
achieve by his burden, was compelled by the 
soldiers to carry the cross. 

A short distance from this bend in the Via 
Dolorosa occurred one of the most dramatically 
impressive incidents in the whole tragic drama 
—it is one of many events related only by Luke. 
Among the huge rabble that followed Jesus 
there were many inspired by aggressive malig- 
nity, many by idle curiosity; but close to the 
Divine Sufferer was a group of following 
women, mourning the fate of the best friend of 
humanity, who, although now a captive, had al- 
ready conquered their faithful and loyal hearts. 


The City of the Great King 35 


The scene stands out from the pages of the Gos- 
pel in an intensity forever vivid: 


And there followed him a great company of 
people, and of women, which also bewailed and 
lamented him. 

But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of 
Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for your- 
selves, and for your children. 

For, behold, the days are coming, in the which 
they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the 
wombs that never bare, and the paps which never 
gave suck. 

Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, 
Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us. 


I hope that all those who look at this picture 
and who are now reading these lines will make 
a resolution to go, if it be in any way possible, 
to the mountain village of Ober-Ammergau in 
the summer of 1930 and see the Passion Play. I 
have seen nearly all actors who have achieved 
international fame during the last thirty years; 
but never have I seen any play or any acting 
comparable to the production of the drama of 
Our Lord’s life and death given by the peasants 
in that remote little town. Twice at the ten-year 
interval have I seen it; and no spectacle either of 
nature or of human nature is more lastingly en- 


36 The City of the Great King 
Sa a A SS TS DS PE TSS LE RSS 


graved on my mind. And of all the long day’s 
drama, the one incident that I remember most 
vividly is this incident along the Via Dolorosa. 

Seven hundred people were on the stage, every 
one actuated by a sincerity beyond the reach of 
a more sophisticated art. The mob was shouting 
in rage and derision; the little boys were picking 
up stones to throw at the victim, and screaming, 
“To the cross with the Galilean!’ In the center 
of this surging mass walked Jesus in sad seren- 
ity, while directly behind him followed a little 
group of sobbing women. 

Suddenly Jesus stopped, stood still; and awed 
by some incomprehensible spell, the unruly and 
turbulent throng grew still as death. The chil- 
dren stood with the stones in their hands; the 
soldiers stopped laughing; the crowd was like 
sculpture. In this strange and sudden silence, 
the pale, weary Sufferer spoke the words of 
doom. 

From the point depicted by the artist the Way 
leads through a narrow, busy thoroughfare, 
lined with shops. At the end of this street, in 
the Abyssinian Church, is a broken pillar that 


The City of the Great King 37 
ste i a Sd ce 


marks the spot where Jesus fell for the third 
time. Through a narrow opening in the wall 
one passes to the entrance of the Church of the 
Holy Sepulchre, and at last stumbles up dark, 
worn steps to the Mount of Calvary. 








Al Copper Shop i 
— Jerusalem 











Mas scene is a perfect m 
+ net for any wandering 
The hand-wrought, unalloy de 
copper utensils reflect the glori- 
ous light of the Syrian sua OS 









ed 


pone 


§ 
§ 


7 








A COPPER SHOP IN JERUSALEM 


pa O ONE with a seeing eye and an 
FAlfasrieone heart can walk 
the streets of Jerusalem today 
apecnout being attracted by many 
Ul things of unforgetable associa- 
tion with events that exist for us in the pages of 
the Sacred Book. It is no wonder, then, that 
the painter’s attention was attracted by this 
scene. It isa perfect magnet for any wandering 
eye. The hand-wrought, unalloyed copper 
utensils reflect the glorious golden light of the 
Syrian sun—as breastplates of Roman soldiers 
reflected it when this same street ran through a 
valley and the Son of Man walked there. The 
proprietor of the shop, the prospective pur- 
chaser and his wife might have bartered here 
long centuries ago, so little changed are they in 
custom, habit, or even style of dress. How could 
any one with the uncanny ability to transfer liv- 


ing scenes to canvas pass by such a place as this? 
41 





42 The City of the Great King 





This particular copper shop stands today on 
“The Valley,” a long street in Jerusalem, run- 
ning from the Damascus Gate on the northwest 
to the Dung Gate on the southeast. The man 
with his back turned to us and his wife may be 
near-by country folk, who by the sweat of their 
brows wring a mere subsistence from the reluc- 
tant soil. Or they may have come up from He- 
bron, a score of miles southward from Jerusa- 
Iem. The yellow cloth covering the man’s head 
and reaching down his back is often seen among 
the men of Hebron, which is in the midst of a 
rocky yet fairly fertile country where produce 
can be raised for the city market. Following an 
old historic highway, peopled with ghosts of the 
past—Solomon’s Pools, containing the reser- 
voirs for both Bethlehem and Jerusalem, were 
somewhere along this trail—they have come to 
the metropolis to dispose of their produce and 
purchase a few necessaries, and at the close of 
their day in the city they will trudge back 
through the nightfall, home. 

The ancient Hebrews were prodigiously fond 
of copper or brass, which is the same thing (as a 


The City of the Great King 43 








matter of fact, the word copper occurs only once 
in our Authorized Version of the Old Testa- 
ment, where brass is used frequently ) ; they made 
altars, candlesticks, armor, helmets, household 
utensils, mirrors—they loved the golden glow, 
the royal splendor of these things; they loved to 
see them in their temples, in their public build- 
ings, and in their houses. Thus there were, as 
we learn from the constant references to this 
bright metal in the Book of Exodus, a vast num- 
ber of expert artificers. But we can go back 
much farther than Exodus—in fact, we can go 
back to the beginning; for in the fourth chapter 
of the Book of Genesis, we learn that the first 
smith on record, Tubal-Cain, was not only an 
expert himself, he was a professor of the art; 
“an instructor of every artificer in brass and 
iron.” Thus, when the Israelites entered into 
Palestine, they brought the secret of this beau- 
tiful craft with them. 

Every one of the various implements on exhi- 
bition in this shop has been made by hand, and 
most of them hammered out by the proprietor in 
the dark interior of the building. Thus they 


44 The City of the Great King 





cannot be standardized, cannot be belched out 
by machines by the thousand; .every one is an 
individual work of loving art and care, and has 
not its exact counterpart anywhere in the world. 

Although the Hebrews understood the art of 
fashioning copper into useful and beautiful 
utensils, the shapes of the vessels in this particu- 
lar shop come principally from early Greek and 
Roman forms. The student may verify this in 
the museum at Damascus. A very few of these 
pieces on exhibition were not made in this shop 
at all; some came from Persia, and two from 
Russia; they must have been bought second-hand 
by the shop-keeper from passing bankrupt pil- 
grims. 

To return to the street in front of the shop. It 
is called “The Valley” exactly as Fleet Street, 
London, bears its name; it commemorates some- 
thing that was, and no longer is. This present 
thoroughfare is anywhere from twenty to ninety 
feet above the original valley. The chasm has 
been gradually filled up by sliding accumula- 
tions of rubbish from both sides. ‘Today it is a 
narrow but not a straight road, winding along 


The City of the Great King 45 





through the center of Jerusalem. Josephus 
called it The Valley of the Cheesemongers, and 
another name for it was The Place of Mer- 
chants. The northern section of it runs through 
the Mohammedan quarter, and the southern 
through the Jewish. The Gate of Damascus at 
the northwest terminus is the meeting-place of 
four roads, and the Dung Gate at the southeast- 
ern end is the main entry through the southern 
walls; the long street is filled with shops, with 
peasants who bring in garden-truck, and with 
itinerant merchants. 

Although the road has risen so that it no 
longer resembles its name (El Wad, or Valley), 
in every other respect it must look as in the days 
when Joseph, Mary, and the Child came down 
from Galilee. Coming from the tiny settlement 
at Nazareth, Jesus must have been in a state of 
wide-eyed wonder as he followed his parents 
through this turbulent thoroughfare, and saw 
the shops and heard the cries of street venders. 
Possibly some particular scene here sank into his 
youthful mind, and years later came to the sur- 
face as a striking illustration as when he said, 


46 The City of the Great Kane 


ee 





“They are like children sitting in the market- 
places, and calling one to another.” Or when 
he spoke of the self-righteous persons who loved 
to receive salutations in the markets, or of the 
laborers who stood there idle—in these instances 
Jesus may have been using illustrations that 
were first impressed upon him when as a coun- 
try lad he saw the crowded Street of the Valley 
in Jerusalem. 

It is possible that the Immortal Three stood 
for some time in front of a copper shop like this, 
for Joseph was a man of importance in Nazareth 
and would not have come to the southern city 
without funds. Possibly he bought some vessel 
of resplendent metal, burnished and fine, and 
carried it back with him to Nazareth. The D1- 
vine Child would have been pleased with its 
shining glory, and in the future, when he was at 
work at home in the northern village, its pres- 
ence would have reminded him of the pil- 
gtimage to Jerusalem. 

In the stories and speeches of Our Lord which 
fell from his lips during the brief years of his 
ministry, there are many allusions to local cus- 


The City of the Great King 47 








toms; so that a picture such as the artist has here 
given us, absolutely authentic in every detail, 
has immense significance, and helps us, as we 
read the New Testament narrative, to see the 
actual environment made by Him forever mem- 
orable. 








Golden Gate 









he Golden Ga through mee 


which Jesus entered Jeru- 
salem on the day of his greatest 
earthly triumph—Palm Sunday, 


‘ f 








a 
oo 


ao 











THE GOLDEN GATE 







i Foe QIN a certain fair Sunday, almost 

(i SY exactly nineteen hundred years 
NCSI 2G 2g) ago, the solidly walled-up gate, 

QE veh which you see in the picture, 
stood wide open to admit the light 
of the sun and the Light of the World. The 
portal faced due east, and the brilliant rays of the 
sun came out of the mist hanging over the Dead 
Sea, crowned the Mount of Olives, bathed the 
Garden of Gethsemane, changed by heavenly 
alchemy the water of the brook Kidron into liv- 
ing gold, and flooded the great gate, then the 
eastern gate of the areas of the Temple, with 
triumphant radiance. 

Looking out from the walls into the barren 
distance, one would have descried a little group 
approaching the city. An ass, accompanied by 
her foal, advanced, carrying a splendid, youth- 
ful figure whose serene face had the air of kingly 


authority. It was in the spring of the year; the 
51 


Rts z Se 


52 The City of the Great King 


gardens about Jerusalem were in bloom. It was 
the time of Passover, when thousands of devout 
Jews flocked to the holy city. Outside the walls 
were many tents, where the pilgrims had en- 
camped. As the Son of God drew nearer, ac- 
companied by his disciples, and by his intimate 
friend, Lazarus, whom he had brought back to 
life, the news of his approach spread like the 
wind from tent to tent, from group to group, and 
like the destined future of Christianity itself, the 
Master and his disciples became the center of an 
enormous throng of shouting, cheering, singing 
enthusiasts. | 
However great may be the jealous hatred of 
high-placed individuals toward any new leader, 
the common people always recognize one who 
loves them, and on this Sunday morning in the 
first century they knew that the quiet figure on 
the humble beast was their best friend. Their 
enthusiasm was as ungovernable as it was spon- 
taneous; they took off their outer garments and 
spread them before him; they cut down branches 
from the trees and waved them in the air. Thus 
amid the joyful multitude of cheering, singing 


The City of the Great King 53 





men and women, Jesus passed through the 
Golden Gate. 

St. Matthew has given us the story in his own 
concise and dramatic manner: 


And when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, and 
were come to Bethphage, unto the mount of 
Olives, then sent Jesus two disciples, 

Saying unto them, Go into the village over 
against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass 
tied, and a colt with her: loose them, and bring 
them unto me. Bae 

And the disciples went, and did as Jesus com- 
manded them, 

And brought the ass, and the colt, and put on 
them their clothes, and they set him thereon. 

And a very great multitude spread their gar- 
ments in the way; others cut down branches from 
the trees, and strawed them in the way. 

And the multitudes that went before, and that 
followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the son of 
David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of 
the Lord; Hosanna in the highest. 

And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the 
city was moved, saying, Who is this? 

And the multitude said, This is Jesus the 
prophet of Nazareth of Galilee. 


We learn from St. Luke’s account that the 
jealous anger of the Pharisees found utterance 
even before Jesus reached the gate. They could 
not endure to hear him saluted as the King com- 


54 The City of the Great King 
rer Ne a a EN WT Ok OP eR 


ing in the name of the Lord, and they said an- 
grily, “Master, rebuke thy disciples.” And 
Jesus said, “I tell you that, if these should hold 
their peace, the stones would immediately cry 
out.” 

Indeed a prophetic word; for today, when the 
gate is closed and silent and the shouting multi- 
tudes are no more, the stones do cry out in 
eternal witness to Him who made this portal 
forever significant. 

To readers of the Bible the Golden Gate in 
this picture is the most interesting portal in the 
world. The fiery prophet Ezekiel made a proph- 
ecy concerning it; he declared that it would 
eventually be closed, and he gave the reason; 
and as we look on its impenetrable front today, 
two references in Scripture rise irresistibly in 
our minds: the prophecy by Ezekiel; and its ful- 
filment by the Prince of Peace. Listen to the 
words of the old Hebrew prophet: 





Then he brought me back the way of the gate of 
the outward sanctuary which looketh toward the 
east; and it was shut. 

Then said the Lord unto me; This gate shall be 
shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter 


The City of the Great King 55 





in by it; because the Lord, the God of Israel, 
hath entered in by it, therefore it shall be shut. 

It is for the prince; the prince, he shall sit in it 
to eat bread before the Lord; he shall enter by the 
way of the porch of that gate, and shall go out by 
the way of the same. 


In early Christian times this gate was believed 
to be the same as the Gate Beautiful mentioned 
in the third chapter of Acts, “the gate of the tem- 
ple which is called Beautiful,” where Peter and 
John gave to the cripple something more val- 
uable than silver and gold. In fact, the word 
“golden” probably arose from a confusion of 
the Greek word Horaea (beautiful) with the 
Latin aurea (golden). 

Even if the Golden Gate received its modern 
name through an error, it richly deserves its ap- 
pellation. For, as it faces the east, the glori- 
ous sunlight floods it with the gold of the 
morning. 

The two arches in the gate certainly appear to 
be of Roman construction; they are called re- 
spectively the Gate of Repentance and the Gate 
of Mercy, and they opened originally into the 
court of the Temple. Although all Christian 


56 The City of the Great King 








people have the best of reasons for loving this 
gate, it also occupies an important place in the 
traditions of the Jews and of the Mohammedans. 
The commonly accepted story is that the Turks 
walled up the entrance so that the future Jewish 
Messiah could not enter here. The Mohamme- 
dans have a notion that Mohammed will walk 
across the brook Kidron ona hair stretched from 
the top of the Mount of Olives, over this gate, 
into the city. 

Enormous stones lie loosely around its foot, as 
the picture shows, and one wonders by what sys- 
tem of engineering they were brought there. 
Directly before the portal is an Arab cemetery. 
Every Friday the Arab women visit these graves 
and force unconsciously upon the attention of 
the Christian pilgrim the contrast between the 
symbols of death and the triumphant entry of 
Him who took away its sting. 

On Palm Sunday Jesus entered through this 
gate in triumph, during the week he suffered 
humiliation and anguish, and on the following 
Sunday he triumphed not only for all time, but 
over time itself. 


The City of the Great King 57 





The Gate, opened to admit Jesus, is now 
closed; but no closed gate or stone walls can 
keep him out, for as he entered into the temple, 
now the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Spirit 
of Truth, knows no barriers, no obstacles, but 
finds the way into what Milton called the great- 
est of all temples, the upright heart and pure. 





Ghe Dead Sea 
id the Livin g Water 













f 


The dark hina silent : sea 1s Uh 
lapis lazuli; it has the so 
solitude of death; no life Deal 


its waters, no life along i its desolate 
edge. 








THE DEAD SEA 
AND THE LIVING WATER 


wide say that one of the most 
beautiful views in the world is 
) the prospect from the top of the 
Mount of Olives, looking east- 
ward toward the plain of the Jordan and the 
Dead Sea. One stands nearly three thousand 
feet above the level of the Mediterranean and 
glances more than four thousand feet downward 
into the cleft in the earth’s surface containing 
the valley of the Jordan and its descent into the 
Salt Sea. Fifteen miles away a patch of the 
keenest blue reveals the sea itself, and the moun- 
tains on its eastward side stand out in various 
colors against the sky. 

Had this tract of land and water no historical 
significance, it would still be a thing of marvel- 


ous beauty; but when one thinks of its religious 
61 





62 The City of the Great King 








and spiritual associations, one is almost over- 
come. 

The brilliant blue of sky and sea, and the des- 
olate land in the fierce sunshine are brought out 
impressively by the artist. This picture was 
painted at the northern end of the Dead Sea, 
where there is a tiny indentation. We are look- 
ing westward; beyond the pink hills on the west- 
ern shore is Jerusalem, and still farther along, 
the Mediterranean; directly behind us is the 
mouth of the Jordan; Jericho is at our right, and 
near by, the desert. Observe the dry, blanched 
deposit of salt on the shores. The country looks 
hot, and it is; Mr. Cornwell informs us that on 
the day he sketched this scene the thermometer 
was 130 degrees in the shade. 

Here we are 1300 feet below the level of the 
Mediterranean, a hot pocket indeed. The inten- 
sity of heat and light is so sharply reflected in 
the picture that one feels them. The shack in the 
foreground is the only human habitation that 
the artist discovered on or near the shore; the 
Arabic architect made an unfinished symphony 
of the building, perhaps in that blazing heat not 


The City of the Great King 63 


caring to endure an unnecessary gesture. You 
observe that he did not take the trouble to saw 
off any poles, allowing them to wander off into 
space. Like a bird building a nest, he took what- 
ever material was handy, incorporating a dead 
tree into the framework. The Jordan washes 
down plenty of rubbish and driftwood, and 
along its shores may be found the bamboo poles 
and palm which the builder used for thatching. 

The name “Dead Sea” does not occur in the 
Bible, the sheet of water always being named the 
Salt Sea. Our first Biblical reference to this re- 
gion is in Genesis 13: 5-13, where the herds- 
men of Abram and Lot quarreled about the pas- 
turage. Then and there might have occurred a 
civil war over the eternal question of land-hun- 
ger, had it not been for the deep wisdom and for- 
bearance of Abram, who set an example which 
might well have been more frequently followed. 
He suggested to Lot that instead of fighting and 
both losing, they separate and both gain; adding 
magnanimously that Lot might choose which- 
ever direction he preferred to go, and Abram 
would take the other. Accordingly “Lot lifted 


64 The City of the Great King 





up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, 
that it was well watered everywhere . . . even 
as the garden of the Lord.” 

Today it is quite otherwise; the dark blue 
silent sea is like lapis lazuli; it has the solemn 
solitude of death; no life within its waters, no 
life along its desolate edge. The beach is crusted 
with salty stones and littered with the corpses 
of trees. The land is cracked with unsatisfied 
thirst ; the limestone hills, “like giants at a hunt- 
ing,” seem to watch and wait in the glare for 
some portentous event. The only beauty in the 
scene is in the varying, ever-changing colors of 
the desert with the bright blue of sky and sea. 

Over on the east is the rolling country of 
Moab whence came Ruth; on the west are the 
hills of Judea, occupied by the soldiers of Israel. 
In the atmosphere of death surrounding the sea 
once stood the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah; 
and in the same region came the austere John the 
Baptist, foretelling the advent of Life. 

The famous bathing place in the Jordan is not 
far away; here come thousands of pilgrims every 
year, descending into the sacred stream. There 


The City of the Great King 65 





the Teacher himself was baptized, and there be- 
gan that ministry which was to change the 
course of history. 

As Palestine is the Holy Land for both Jews 
and Christians, so is the Jordan near its entrance 
into the Salt Sea forever associated both with the 
Old and with the New Testament. The waters 
parted as Joshua led his host into the Promised 
Land; they parted again for Elijah and then for 
Elisha; near the same place came the reluctant, 
skeptical, and angry Naaman, who, as he gazed 
at the muddy, warm, insignificant river, thought 
of the rich streams of Abana and Pharpar, and 
wondered why this uninviting water should pos- 
sess virtues unknown to the rivers of Damascus. 

Topographically the valley of the Jordan is 
one of the most peculiar wrinkles on the old face 
of the earth. The river rises some thousand feet 
above sea level, from two springs between Leb- 
anon and Hermon. It flows through a shad- 
owed canyon for about seven miles, wanders 
later into a broad marsh which widens into a 
little lake; farther along it becomes the Sea of 
Galilee, then, emerging at the southeast corner, 


66 The City of the Great King 





rushes with ever-increasing speed and turbu- 
lence, becoming tepid, turbid, and swollen in the 
rainy season, often overflowing its banks. It 
tumbles into the Basin of Death at a depression 
of 1300 feet. Its entire length in a straight line 
is only about 120 miles, but its twists and turns 
give it an actual length of 240 miles. 

The contrast between the living Jordan and 
the Dead Sea may be symbolically represented 
in the picture of Heaven in the Apocalypse, 
where there is the River of Life, but there is no 
more sea. 

Every river has for me a peculiar fascination. 
It is alive: living water flowing through mead- 
ows, through forests, between cliffs, over sands, 
never standing still, always moving and always 
going somewhere, as though well aware of its 
destination. 

The Bible begins and ends with a river. In 
the second chapter of Genesis we learn that “a 
river went out of Eden to water the garden” —a 
lovely spectacle. Paradise could never have 
been complete without the sound of running 
water. And in the last chapter of Revelation we 


The City of the Great King 67 





learn that “he showed me a pure river of water 
of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the 
throne of God and the Lamb.” It is curious 
that when the Bible distinctly speaks of this ever- 
lasting river of Life, “on either side of the river 
was there the tree of life,”’ the old heathen idea 
of the River of Death still possesses the minds 
of many Christians. Dante and Bunyan have 
fixed it in the imagination of believers, who talk 
about “crossing the river.” But as a matter of 
fact, there is no place in Christian thought for 
a River of Death. On the contrary, both the 
earthly and the heavenly paradise had a river 
to gladden and refresh the happy inhabitants. 

A river itself is like a human life. The source 
is often obscure, humble, and unimportant; in 
its early stages it is a tiny stream, then swelling, 
growing bigger and more important, just as a 
man’s influence extends; now flowing tran- 
quilly, like prosperous, comfortable days; now 
getting into sand flats and shallows, hardly mov- 
ing, like some period of long sickness; now roar- 
ing and rushing tempestuously in rapids, like 
times of stress, excitement, and panic; now a 


68 The City of the Great King 


huge waterfall, like a calamity of serious magni- 
tude; yet always going on toward the sea. 

It is an interesting and suggestive fact that 
Palestine has both the living Jordan and the 
Dead Sea. And what man or woman familiar 
with the Bible can help thinking that in the same 
region where stood the incredibly wicked cities 
of the plain came the Divine Son of God who 
was himself the well of water springing up into 
everlasting life? 





GOhe Sea of Galilee 


” 






alilean fishermen, eather ape 

the first disciples, bringing 
their catch to market, even as 
Peter and Andrew and the sons of | 
Zebedee brought theirs. 








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THE SEA OF GALILEE 


mama] LTE picture of the Galilean fisher- 


LAS] (RGce) ) 
Be ok bs men was painted by the artist 


not long ago, but it might well 

| represent the scene, the men, and 
H the customs of the time of Our 
Lord. It is the light of dawn; the fishers have 
been out all night, and the results of their profes- 
sional work are in evidence. The calm of early 
morning is broken only by the activity of the 
toilers of the sea. 

The shores of this lake are held in reverence 
by millions who never saw them with the eyes 
of flesh; and there is indeed no portion of the 
earth’s surface so clearly visualized by for- 
eigners as the land and water of Palestine. The 
map of the Holy Land is carried in the minds of 
countless throngs of men and women of all na- 
tions; and those few who travel thither have 
more the pleasure of recognition than the excite- 
ment of surprise. 





71 


72 The City of the Great King 








It was along the banks of the Sea of Galilee 
that Jesus called to him his first disciples. The 
infant Jesus was first saluted by shepherds, and 
his ministry began with fishermen, indicating 
his ultimate dominion over land and sea. Chris- 
tianity was, is, and will be essentially a mission- 
ary movement, by far the greatest enterprise ever 
undertaken in human history. The goal is the 
highest possible—nothing less than the salvation 
of the world by the regeneration of man. The 
movement started by this little lake has contin- 
ued for nearly twenty centuries and is today ad- 
vancing in all parts of the earth. 


And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw 
two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his 
brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were 
fishers. 

And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will 
make you fishers of men. 

And they straightway left their nets, and fol- 
lowed him. 

And going on from thence, he saw other two 
brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his 
brother, in a ship with Zebedee their father, mend- 
ing their nets; and he called them. 

And they immediately left the ship and their 
father, and followed him. 


The City of the Great King 73 


Thus began through individual hearts the 
advance toward true civilization, toward the 
brotherhood of all men; for the most splendid 
League of Nations is the Church of Christ. It 
is interesting to observe that the qualification 
for membership in the original church lay not 
in an intellectual, but in a voluntary attitude, in 
the word “follow” and in the word “me.” We 
ought not today to make it more complicated 
or more difficult to enter the church than Jesus 
himself made it. 

This lovely sheet of ‘water has three Bible 
names: the Sea of Galilee, the Lake of Gennes- 
areth, and the Sea of Tiberias; the last name is 
used only in the Gospel of John. It is fresh, the 
river Jordan flowing through it toward the Dead 
Sea. It is about thirteen miles long and about 
six miles wide, and is surprisingly deep for so 
small a surface, over 150 feet. It is surrounded 
by gentle hills, and because of the fact that it is 
681 feet below the Mediterranean, the intense 
heat of its basin causes a profusion of vegetation 
along its shores. Those who have seen it in the 
springtime say it is Paradise. 


74 The City of the Great King 








There are allusions in the Gospel story to fish- 
ing in the Sea of Galilee; hence it is interesting 
to remember that this small lake today abounds 
in fish of many kinds, providing one of the chief 
occupations of the men who live near its banks, 
as is shown in the picture. There are certain 
varieties of fish here which are elsewhere found 
only in Central Africa—one peculiar fish which 
carries its young in its mouth, sometimes to the 
number of 200. A recent visitor, out in a small 
boat, asked the boatman to try his luck with a 
hand-net, and in one dip a dozen good fish were 
taken. 

In the eleventh chapter of Matthew, Jesus 
prophesied that the then prosperous city of Ca- 
pernaum, on the shore of the lake, would be 
brought down to hell: 

And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto 
heaven, shalt be brought down to hell; for if the 
mighty works, which have been done i in thee, had 
been done in Sodom, it would have remained until 
this day. 

But I say unto you, That it shall be more toler- 


able for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment 
than for thee. 


The City of the Great King 5 

















At present Capernaum is nothing but a few 
stones—an absolute desolation. The only town 
near the lake which has survived is Tiberias, 
and that looks more like a collection of tombs 
than a collection of houses. 

The chief beauty is the lake itself, a brilliant, 
charming blue in the sunshine, flat as a floor on 
a windless evening, but as treacherous as in the 
days of its glory. A traveler who set sail from 
the ruins of Capernaum to the opposite shore 
had an experience thrillingly reminiscent of the 
famous chapter in Mark, “when the even was 
come,” and Jesus calmed the boisterous waves. 


And there arose a great storm of wind, and the 
waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full.— 
Mark. 

_ As the sun set, the blow came in heavy puffs 
which sent our little craft well over to leeward and 
dipped the picturesque lateen sail in the water, 
while the spray covered the whole party.—W. D. 
McCracken, 1922. 


As Jesus began his ministry on the border of 
this sea, so the last word we have of him in the 
last chapter of the last Gospel is in the same lo- 
cality. It was after the Resurrection, when, ac- 


76 The City of the Great King 





cording to John, “Jesus shewed himself again to 
the disciples at the sea of Tiberias.” The very 
first word he uttered was “Children, have ye any 
meatP” For your Heavenly Father knoweth 
that ye have need of all these things. And after 
they had dined, looking out over the waters of 
the lake, Jesus put with terrible threefold inten- 
sity the question to Peter, “Lovest thou me?” 
And the very last reported utterance to the dis- 
ciples at the end of the four Gospels was a repe- 
tition of the first—“Follow thou me.” 

These humble fisher folk had what seems at 
first the inestimable advantage of seeing and 
talking with Jesus; but today the true disciple 
does not have to journey to Palestine to see the 
King in his beauty. The mystical poet, Francis 
Thompson, who used to walk the streets of Lon- 
don at midnight, maintained that with the eye 
of faith Jesus was as visible on the river Thames 
as on the Sea of Galilee. 


Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter, 
Cry, clinging heaven by the hems: 

And lo, Christ walking on the water, 
Not of Gennesareth, but Thames! 


The City of the Great King 77 





And as the Divine Word subdued the angry 
waves, so can it even now calm the stormy pas- 
sions of the heart. In the words of Whittier, 


Faith has still its Olivet, 
And love its Galilee! 














Bs potter ts enormously i 1M-— 
portant in the tend Land, | 
as he always has been... . 
clay is the same, and it is to ay 
fashioned into exactly the same — 
forms that were current in ancient — 


times. 





Rae, 












2 lee ene 
ns ene 


eine 


a Ps ; 
vans 
» 4 


. 
' 
7 
* 
. 
\ 





THE POT-SELLER OF BETHLEHEM 


a ETHLEHEM! To every one 
brought up in a Christian home 
the word is full of music, as 
though we heard today across 
the leagues of land and sea and 
across the gulf of centuries the singing of the 
angelic host. Bethlehem is a small town, but it 
dwarfs all the great cities of the world. Long 
before the Advent, the prophet Micah foretold 
its glory: 





But thou, Beth-lehem Ephratah, though thou 
be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of 
thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler 
in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of 
old, from everlasting. 

The word “Bethlehem” means “place of 
food,” and it was so called because it was a fer- 
tile spot in a barren land, symptomatic in its very 
soil of its supreme spiritual fruitfulness. It is 


first mentioned in Genesis 35 as Ephrath, 
81 


82 The City of the Great King 





whither Jacob and his wife Rachel were travel- 
ing; she gave birth to Benjamin, “And Rachel 
died, and was buried in the way to Ephrath, 
which is Beth-lehem.” 

It was called Bethlehem-Judah because there 
was another Bethlehem in the northern section 
of Palestine, mentioned in Joshua 19:15. 

The great King David was born in Bethle- 
hem-Judah, and for centuries thereafter the little 
town was called the City of David. In 325 A.D. 
a church was built there, which still stands, sup- 
posedly on the spot of the original manger. 

One leaves Jerusalem for Bethlehem by the 
Jaffa Gate, and instead of proceeding by foot 
or on the back of a camel, one rolls southward 
through beautiful country in an American auto- 
mobile. The distance between the towns is a 
little less than six miles, and on entering Bethle- 
hem one finds, instead of the noise and tumult of 
Jerusalem, a quaint and quiet village, with an 
atmosphere all its own. Even today it is unique. 

Bethlehem is almost entirely Christian. Look 
at the house in the left background of the pic- 
ture, and you will see a light bluish-tinted 


The City of the Great King 83 


“whitewash” around its door and window. This 
is the sign that no Mohammedan lives there. 

In Palestine, from the time of Rachel’s death 
until 1926, the physical association with Bethle- 
hem in the minds of all travelers has been its 
wells. In the drought and steady heat of the 
summer days and nights, the wells of Bethlehem 
are the solace and strength of pilgrims. Mr. 
Cornwell writes, “A drink of water was my first 
and last thought.” 

The most famous allusion in history to the 
water of Bethlehem is when the Philistines had 
captured and garrisoned the little town. King 
David and his army were outside in the heat, 
and one day, when the King was terribly thirsty 
and was thinking out loud, remembering the pe- 
culiar sweetness and freshness of the water he 
knew, he soliloquized, “Oh that one would give 
me drink of the water of the well of Beth-lehem, 
that is at the gate!” 

Then the three mighty men, his devoted and 
loyal captains, broke through the host of the 
Philistines, drew water from the well, and 
hacked their way back again, spilling much 


84 The City of the Great King 
eee 
blood but no water. They brought the precious 
liquid in a vessel similar to one of these in the 
foreground of our picture, and, covered with 
streaming sweat and streaming wounds, they 
presented it to the great King. Then David did 
the most beautiful thing in his long life. He 
poured out the water on the ground, because he 
felt unworthy to drink water for which his fa- 
vorite officers had risked their lives. What a sur- 
prise this must have been to the three worthies, 
and how their amazement must have flamed into 
a renewed passion of devotion when they heard 
his words! 

The place of honor in the picture is rightly 
given to the pots and the potter. These make an 
irresistible appeal to any spectator who is famil- 
iar with the Bible or with oriental history. The 
potter 1s enormously important in the Holy 
Land, as he always has been. Every shape seen 
here is traditional. It comes down from a re- 
mote period of time and is as old as the art itself. 
The clay is the same, and it is today fashioned 
into exactly the same forms that were current in 


The City of the Great King 85 








ancient times, as is clearly proved by comparing 
the modern pots offered for sale with the clay 
pots revealed by the excavations of the archeol- 
ogists. The potter has his wheel, which he turns 
by foot-power; he holds the wet clay with both 
hands, and the whirling wheel fashions it into 
the desired shape. In ancient times he did this 
with such artistry that even today scientists and 
artists are vainly seeking the secret possessed by 
the ancient potters of China. This was man’s 
first conquest, the subduing of natural elements 
into utensils of use and beauty. 

But it is not the mere thought of the antiquity 
of this art that is so stimulating; it is the meta- 
phorical use of it in the Bible and in modern 
poetry. The most famous passage in Scripture 
dealing with the potter is in that great eighteenth 
chapter of Jeremiah, where the prophet wrote: 


Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, 
behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. 

And the vessel that he made of clay was marred 
in the hand of the potter: so he made it again an- 
other vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make 
it. 


86 The City of the Great King 
Ne SSeS 
Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 
O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this 
potter? saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in 
the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house 
of Israel. 

Robert Browning, with a devout philosophy 
that matched that of the prophet, used the same 
figure in the same way, in his great poem, 
“Rabbi Ben Ezra.” God is the wise Potter; we 
are the clay in His hands; God holds us bound 
dizzily on the wheel of life, in order that He may 
shape us into something worthy of His presence. 
Browning wrote this poem soon after he had 
sustained the most bitter sorrow of his life, the 
death of the only woman he ever loved. But al- 
though he was shaken by grief, his faith was 
shaken not at all. 

As we look at the picture of the pot-seller of 
Bethlehem, the sublime words of Browning 
come into our minds. 


Ay, note that Potter’s wheel, 
That metaphor! and feel 
Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,— 
Thou, to whom fools propound, 
When the wine makes its round, 
“Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize 
today!” 


The City of the Great King 87 





Fool! All that is, at all, 
Lasts ever, past recall; 
Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure: 
What entered into thee, 
That was, is, and shall be: 
Time’s wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay 
endure... 









y Cy h 
a ey 
ae. 















n Palestine modern villages are” | 
scarce, hence such pictures 
as this CGHENS.. a mip we 


its Han, hous pes tes e 
live stock, we see assembled 
one roof. 














A HOUSE IN NAZARETH 


3p)! se) interior of a Nazarene house 

ad ee exactly as it looks today. But it 
also is an accurate Bible illustra- 
¥ tion, for the architecture, the fur- 
nishings, the household duties, and the family 
‘life have changed very little in two thousand 
years. In Palestine modern villages are scarce, 
hence such pictures as this represent a social life 
which is at once ancient and contemporary. 
This family is independent and self-supporting ; 
all its wealth, both machinery and live stock, 
we see assembled under one roof. The ceiling 
is high, to allow for the circulation of air and 
the dispersion of smoke; the supports are huge 
arches; the distinction separating human beings 
from the animals is merely a higher level on the 
floor. 

The house is built of rough stone with walls 


thick as those of a fortress. Windows count for 
9! 


5, 
Za 
cone 





92 The City of the Great King 





little, being small and high up. The interior 
consists of one large room, the walls unadorned 
even by whitewash. By day the door stands 
open, and when it is shut at night, it encloses not 
only the family, but sheep, goats, donkeys. On 
the lower level, literally the ground floor, these 
animals repose, and there are crude mangers 
made of stone or wood or earth. When Joseph 
and Mary could find no room at the inn at Beth- 
lehem, the hospitable family which received 
them had in all probability the dais already 
crowded with children and guests; so that the 
Divine Babe was placed in just such a manger. 
Filled with hay, it made a comfortable abode, 
and today it is customary to dispose of extra 
guests in this fashion. 

When the family retire for the night, they take 
down from recesses in the walls thin blankets or 
mattresses which need less space than the mod- 
ern folding-bed, for they can be rolled up into 
a compact bundle and easily carried anywhere. 
Thus the command, “Take up thy bed and 
walk,” is understandable. The most showy ar- 
ticle of furniture is the bridal chest, containing 


The City of the Great King 93 








the trousseau brought to the new home. In the 
same spacious bed-sitting-room there are large 
earthen receptacles for the family supplies of 
grain, with lesser ones for flour. Other house- 
hold “crockery” consists of jars holding olives 
or oil or drinking-water, wooden bowls for 
bread, and shining copper vessels for cooking. 
The tall, rectangular, upright bins behind the 
sitting figure in the picture are filled with flour, 
while on the left, against the wall, those huge 
square bins, composed of clay and straw, store 
the season’s supply of grain, kept for the use of 
the family until the next harvest. 

The baskets hanging from the ceiling are 
filled with food. Mr. Cornwell tells how, when 
he was sketching this picture, one of the chil- 
dren cried out with hunger. Immediately the 
mother loosened a string, and down came the 
basket; she took from it some food for chewing, 
which quieted the child, and up went the basket 
again, out of reach of goats and donkeys. The 
family have two regular daily meals, but the chil- 
dren of Palestine, like other children, are often 
hungry, and the fathers and mothers in the East 


94 The City of the Great King 








are so sensitively affectionate that they cannot 
endure the cry of hunger; hence they give the 
little ones food whenever it is demanded. 

There is a passage in the Bible about the chil- 
dren’s bread which illustrates not only the gen- 
erosity of parents, but the precise circumstances 
of domestic life revealed in this picture. This 
very room will serve as an illustration for Mat- 
thew 15:26, 27: 

It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and 
to cast it to dogs. 


And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of 
the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table. 


This Bible passage shows at once the solici- 
tude of parents and the fact that the room had 
animals with the family, as in this picture. 

Again: privacy in sleeping-quarters has never 
been customary in Palestine. Remember the 
answer given to the friend who came at mid- 
night asking for three loaves of bread, Luke 
11: 8, “My children are with me in bed; I can- 
not rise and give thee.” It was not his personal 
inconvenience that concerned him; he knew that 


The City of the Great King 95 


if he got up, he would disturb the entire house- 
hold. 

In the picture the woman is grinding wheat 
into flour. She feeds the grain with her left 
hand between the two (literal) grindstones, 
while with her right hand she turns them. This 
is hard work, especially in hot weather, and, 
therefore, is often done just before dawn. She 
will finally take the lump of leaven, saved from 
the last batch, and mix the dough. Sometimes 
she will bake this in her own oven, but it is more 
amusing to employ the public one, where, await- 
ing her turn, she can gossip with her neighbors. 

A thousand times Jesus must have seen Mary 
bake bread. He often used figures of speech 
taken from this familiar occupation; for while 
Jesus’ teaching and the nature of his kingdom 
were not always understood by his audience, he 
invariably used figures of speech clear to all. 
The first process in bread-making was sifting; 
this was done by shaking the grain into a pan, 
so that the kernels went to one side and the waste 
to the other, where it could be tossed out with- 


96 The City of the Great King 





out ceasing to sift. This manipulation required 
dexterity and took considerable practice, but it 
was thorough, and Jesus remembered it when he 
said to Peter, “Satan hath desired to have you, 
that he may sift you as wheat.” 

The ovens are of clay, being a kind of pit with 
a circular top, beside which a fire of grass, or 
twigs, or refuse is placed. In the Bible, grass 
refers to any kind of weed or flower of the field, 
and Jesus had in mind perhaps his mother’s 
cooking when he said, “The grass of the field, 
which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the 
oven.” 

What will this family do after the day is spent 
and night has fallen? They will take out from 
the wall the roll-beds, spread them on the floor, 
and without removing their clothes, the family 
and their guests will lie down with their feet 
toward the fire on the hearth. As they hate soli- 
tude, so they have a horror of darkness. The 
light will be kept burning all night, for the wife 
has seen that the lamp is well filled with oil. In 
that eloquent description of the virtuous woman 
in Proverbs, we are told that “her candle goeth 


The City of the Great King 97 





not out by night.” The word “candle” was the 
King James word, and it means simply illumina- 
tion, for they used oil lamps in Palestine. Every 
one instantly understood the speaker when he 
said, “Nor is a lamp lighted to be put under a 
bushel, but on the lampstand; and then it gives 
light to all in the house.” (Matthew 5:15, Wey- 
mouth’s translation.) Asa child, I used to won- 
der how a single candle could give light to all 
in the house, for how could it illuminate more 
than one room? But in this picture we see that 
the whole house was one room. 











Cus, On ee ‘Saul : fis 


aie i 1 


terrupted by the eng 


" 





(ULSL 





s 





THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS 


N THE accompanying picture, a 
tumultuous scene of crowded 
confusion, the brush of the 
painter becomes a magic, hyp- 
notic wand, arresting and pre- 

serving for one perpetual instant the march of 

the camels, the gestures of the merchants, the 
hand with the uplifted Damascus sword. So 
thick with vital activity is the scene that it takes 
but little imagination for us to hear as well as 
to see; we hear the noisy jostling of the advanc- 
ing throng, the shouts and cheers of the pilgrims 
as the minarets of the city burst into view be- 
tween the black cedars. For this is the pageant 
of a famous priest returning from some distant 
part of Turkey. One is reminded of the lines in 
Browning’s “Paracelsus”: 





I amawanderer: I remember well 
One journey, how I feared the track was missed, 


So long the city I desired to reach 
IOI 


102 The City of the Great King 





Lay hid; when suddenly its spires afar 
Flashed through the circling clouds. 


Mr. Cornwell painted this picture in the late 
twilight. The receptive festivities had started 
early in the morning. Children were adorned 
with flowers and gay cloths; banners were held 
aloft, flags fluttered in the breeze, “the air broke 
into a mist with bells,” and finally the priest 
drew near the city gates, assured of a triumphant 
entrance. 

The sacred camels seem conscious of their 
decorations; they wear blankets of silk, huge 
tassels, shells and beads and pearls. Their riders 
swing the ancient weapons made of the famous 
Damascus steel. In the rear are whirling der- 
vishes, while rose petals and perfumes are show- 
ered upon them by the admiring throng. Enor- 
mous scarlet flags carrying Arabic inscriptions 
in letters of gold sway in time to the ancient 
chants of the pilgrims, emphasized by the beats 
of an equally ancient drum. Above the con- 
fused murmur of the crowd and of the monot- 
onous song is heard the crash of cymbals. 


The City of the Great King 103 





No women are to be seen; in those days they 
did not count. But little boys are much in evi- 
dence; they are arrayed in bright-colored robes 
and turbans, and they proudly carry guns and 
scimitars. 

It has been well said that Damascus, and not 
Rome, should be called the Eternal City. It 
is the oldest city in the world with a continuous 
history. It is mentioned in the fourteenth chap- 
ter of Genesis, and plays an important role both 
in the Old and in the New Testament. 

Perhaps no city anywhere presents a more 
thrilling sight when seen from afar. It is ona 
triangular plain, and the Arabs regarded that 
plateau as the most beautiful of the four Earthly 
Paradises. When one is still distant, an immense 
number of cupolas, domes, and minarets leap 
into the air, surrounding the vast mass of the 
central mosque. There are over 250 mosques 
in Damascus, many of them adorned with ex- 
quisite minarets; the oval shape of the city 1s 
surrounded by a massive wall, intersected with 
splendid towers and gateways, swelling at one 
part into a huge fortress. 


104 The City of the Great King 





The road from the Mediterranean city of 
Beirut runs eastward about fifty miles to Da- 
mascus; clear streams are on both sides of the 
way, and along the banks are the famous cedars 
of Lebanon. 

The beautiful rivers, Abana and Pharpar, so 
dear to the homesick Naaman as he looked on 
the squalid stream of Jordan, are two of the 
numerous graces of Damascus; but they have 
often been stained with blood, for the city has 
been the scene of many wars. It was captured 
by King David, taken back by the Syrians, re- 
taken by Jeroboam, captured again by the King 
of Assyria; it remained in the control of the 
Assyrians and Persians until the all-conquering 
armies of Alexander appeared when it shared a 
common fate. Of course the Romans got it 
later, and they called one of its streets Straight, 
a descriptive name that distinguishes it instantly 
from the curving, twisting roadways character- 
istic of Damascus and all Oriental cities. Today 
it is once more in the midst of war, for the 
French have found, as so many palefaces have 
discovered before them, that the Druses can 
fight. 


The City of the Great King 105 








As we see in the accompanying picture not 
only another demonstration of the eternal love 
of the Parade so characteristic of all peoples, 
but in particular the triumphant return of a 
great priest to his city, our minds go out in- 
stinctively to another man, who, nineteen hun- 
dred years ago, drew near this same city, not 
knowing that he was to see a spectacle more 
dazzling than cloud-capped towers and gor- 
geous palaces. He came, like this Eastern 
priest, in pride, but he entered in humility. 

Saul of Tarsus, known to the Romans as Paul, 
was a proud and scholarly Jewish official, born 
and bred a Pharisee. When he heard the dis- 
ciples of the Nazarene preaching, he was 
shocked at their proclaiming, as Messiah, One 
who had been condemned and crucified by de- 
fenders of the Jewish Law to which he was so 
intensely loyal. He heard the gentle Stephen, 
“saw his face as it had been the face of an an- 
gel,” and Paul’s heart, between fidelity to the 
traditions of his race and the power and beauty 
of the new teachings, was stirred to terrible con- 
flict. In order to quiet this clamor in his own 


106 The City of the Great King 





soul, he began to persecute the Christians. He 
stood by approvingly when Stephen was stoned. 
He cast men and women into prison. He heard 
that the Christians were converting many in 
Damascus, and he procured official orders to 
drive them out of that city. | 


And it came to pass, that, as I made my journey, 
and was come nigh unto Damascus about noon, 
suddenly there shone from heaven a great light 
round about me. 

And I fell unto the ground, and heard a voice 
saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou 
me? 

And I answered, Who art thou, Lord? And he 
said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou 
persecutest. 

And they that were with me saw indeed the 
light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice 
of him that spake to me. 

And I said, What shall I do, Lord? . And the 
Lord said unto me, Arise, and go into Damascus; 
and there it shall be told thee of all things which 
are appointed for thee to do. 

And when I could not see for the glory of that 
light, being led by the hand of them that were with 
me, I came into Damascus. 


So far as we know, during his life on earth 
Jesus never visited the city of Damascus; but in 
the heart of a blind man he entered through the 


The City of the Great King 107 


walls of the ancient town, and when this man 
opened his eyes again, they were illumined by 
the Light of the World. This man had been 
transformed by a heavenly vision, and in the 
memory of that light he was to walk until he 
should again and forever behold the King in 
his beauty. 





pe Et of the 
oly Sepulchre 











6 eG Church of the Holy Sep- — 
ulchre as it now stands in 
Jerusalem to mark the sight of that — 
rock-hewn tomb in which Joseph 
of Arimathea placed the body of 


Jesus after the Crucifixion. me 














THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY 
SEPULCHRE 


= HE artist has sketched for us the 
nt / present appearance of the 
Church of the Holy Sepulchre 
) at Jerusalem. Directly across 
4 the street from this amorphous 
structure is a hotel; Mr. Cornwell’s rooms faced 
the church front, so that we in regarding this 
picture are seeing what the artist saw from his 
lodgings every day. 

In Palestine, when a building is erected, it 
does not occur to anyone to take away ruins 
and rubbish that may surround it. As the tree 
falls, so shall it lie. Thus new and old touch 
elbows; everywhere in Palestine the incon- 
gruous is the normal. The main portion of this 
church is almost a part of the ruins that hedge 
it in. At the extreme upper left, you see an 
arch that has broken down, like the bridge at 


II! 





112 The City of the Great King 








Avignon. It was not left, however, for any 
romantic or sentimental reason, but simply be- 
cause the builders did not take the trouble to 
remove it, and no one else seems to have felt 
the necessity of doing so. Such is the prevailing 
custom in that untidy land. 

The space in front of the church is as ani- 
mated as the Piazza of St. Mark’s in Venice. 
Mr. Cornwell says that the scene he has repro- 
duced is typical; every day that he was in 
Jerusalem it looked just about like this. Reli- 
gious processions, social gatherings, sordid bar- 
ter, general gossip all find a place here; in the 
left foreground one sees a group of dark figures. 
They are priests of some order, who assemble 
here daily; todo what? To gamble. Surprised 
by this spectacle, the artist inquired of a by- 
stander, and he was informed that the priests 
spent their whole time here rolling dice. 

This would perhaps seem more shocking if 
it did not take us back in history to the greatest 
of all dramas, here enacted, where the indifferent 
soldiers gambled for the garments of the King. 


The City of the Great King 113 








My masters, there’s an old book you should con, 

For strange adventures, applicable yet, 

It is stuffed with. Do you know that there was once 
This thing: a multitude of worthy folk 

Took recreation, watched a certain group 

Of soldiery intent upon a game— 

How first they wrangled, but soon fell to play, 

Threw dice—the best diversion in the world. 

A word in your ear—they are now casting lots. 


It would be interesting if we were certain of 
the exact place of the Tomb—the Tomb that 
marked the burial and new birth not only of 
the Son of Man, but the burial of the old Law 
and the dawn of the Life of Love. The early 
disciples were naturally and properly more 
interested in the living Lord and in his teaching 
than they were in the dark place where his body 
slept; the Kingdom of God was in their hearts, 
not in any commemorative building or stone 
memorial. It was not until the reign of Con- 
stantine, three hundred years later, that a search 
was made for the place of burial, and on tra- 
ditional and speculative evidence, Calvary and 


114 The City of the Great King 





the tomb were identified. Constantine then 
built a memorial church. It has been the scene 
of warfare, pillage, destruction, and renovation. 
The Moslems tore down the Church of the Holy 
Sepulchre, but it was rebuilt, burned, rebuilt 
again, reconstructed and enlarged so many times 
and in so many different periods that it is today 
an architectural jumble. Much of it dates only 
from 1808, but the Romanesque front has an 
antique air. 

Neither exterior nor interior is dignified. 
Inside it is, like so many people who live near 
it, both gaudy and dirty. Yet in spite of the 
cheapness of the architecture and decoration, 
in spite of the noisy and profane crowds that 
jostle before it, many pilgrims come hither with 
sincere reverence. A small crypt, illumined 
with lamps, where one must literally bow the 
head to enter, is the traditional place of the 
Tomb. And there a stone slab is worn smooth 
by the kisses of millions. 

Tall candles, lamps of precious metals, which 
are forever alight, are added to by the flicker- 
ing tapers brought by pilgrims; and in the 


The City of the Great King 115 





richly adorned chapels, where every event in 
the final tragedy is pictorially illustrated, kneel 
in silent adoration devout worshipers. Thus the 
outside of the church and the sacred spot within 
unconsciously symbolize the eternal contrast 
between the confused world of selfish ambition 
and the secret life of the spirit. 

No one can gaze on this picture without hav- 
ing his thoughts turn back to that spring morn- 
ing twenty centuries ago, when the soldiers, and 
the priests, and the weeping women, and the 
curious mob followed the Divine Sufferer from 
the city walls to the tiny mound of Calvary. The 
word Calvary occurs only once in the Bible, 
St. Luke 23: 33. The expression “Mount Cal- 
vary” has no historic basis, for the elevation is 
only eighteen feet high. It was round in shape 
like a skull, hence was called Golgotha, the He- 
brew for skull, and that is the name used by St. 
Matthew, St. Mark, and St. John. The Latin 
Vulgate translation of the Greek word for skull 
—Kranion—was Calvaria, meaning a bald or 
bare skull. Our translators adopted the word 
Calvaria and in St. Luke’s gospel they called it 


116 The City of the Great King 





Calvary. For St. Luke is the only one of the 
four evangelists who uses only the Greek word, 
and does not mention the Hebrew Golgotha. 

On this small, skull-like eminence, fitly named 
—for this was the regular place of the execution 
of criminals—the terrible procession halted in 
the spring sunshine, and the Cross with its divine 
burden was elevated. Even as the cross stood 
on the top of the mound, so today in commem- 
oration it stands on the top of the round dome 
of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and on 
that of thousands of other churches and cathe- 
drals all over the round earth. The Ball and 
the Cross—the globe of the world dominated by 
the sign of the only One who ever overcame it. 

His executioners were angry that he should 
be called the King of the Jews, and as he hung 
between the two thieves, he seemed to the cynical 
and jeering throng a futile mockery of a real 
King. But on the radiant Sunday morning 
when he left the tomb, it appeared that he was 
not only the King of the Jews, but the King of 
Life and Death—King of kings and Lord of 
lords. 














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